Football Manager 2013 Review

Of course the die hard fans of the series will not want to take the short, easy route through the season. The type of player who wants to control every facet of their team won’t be disappointed, as everything that was in last year’s game is still here. You can set specific scouting assignments, adjust your club’s budgets, chase transfer targets, settle contracts and speak to the media to your heart’s content. Interestingly the interface is slightly different to the Classic mode, and seems more in line with previous versions of Football Manager. It is slightly odd when you move from one mode to another and your buttons for certain actions have been moved to a different part of the screen.

FM has suffered from poor online support in the past, where players would often have to download third party software to try and set up games with their friends. This year that seems to have been remedied however, and I was able to search for, host and join online games with no problems. The speed of the interface and processing is severely reduced when playing online though, as you have to wait for the connection to go through, and it is often painfully slow at times. There were also occasional connectivity issues where the game would not progress until we had restarted the game. Other than that though, you can play any of the game modes available, with the added excitement of knowing that your team will be playing against your friend’s team at some point. The multiplayer also features a Versus mode, where you can set up custom tournaments and players can import their teams from offline games to compete against each other. These provide another quick burst of action rather than taking part in the lengthy seasons.

It is easy to lose hours of time to Football Manager 2013. Winning brings that feeling of excitement, knowing that you have done everything right, and drives you on to the next match. Losing only serves as motivation to change up your training or sign a new player. If you invest yourself fully into your team, it is hard to find another game which brings such strong feelings of highs and lows. You cheer every goal you score, and lament every goal scored against you. You can even post match results to Facebook or Twitter, just so all your friends can see what an excellent manager you are. I have finished writing the review, but my time with FM 2013 is nowhere near over. I will not rest until my local team is competing with the best of them up in the highest leagues. That will probably take until Football Manager 2014 is released though.